Patent

A patent for an invention is the grant of a property right to the inventor, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States or, in special cases, from the date an earlier related application was filed, subject to the payment of maintenance fees. This is FindLaw’s collection of Patent articles, part of the Intellectual Property section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.

Intellectual Property

Patent Articles

Destroying Patent Rights by Making an “Offer for Sale”

Patent infringement lawsuits are generally brought against parties that manufacture, use or sell, the patented invention without the patent owner's permission. Patent infringement can also occur when someone other has simply offered the invention ...
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Disclosure Document Program

A service provided by the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is the acceptance and preservation for two years of "Disclosure Documents" as evidence of the date of conception of an invention. A paper disclosing an invention (called a Disclosure ...
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Doctrine of Equivalents Revitalized by Federal Circuit En Banc

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit announced in Hilton Davis Chemical Co. v. Warner-Jenkinson Co., Inc., No. 93-1088, slip. op. (Fed. Cir. August 8, 1995)(en banc) that the doctrine of equivalents is alive and well and is what the Supreme ...
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Dreams of the Moon and Gold Do Not a Valid Patent Make

Fall 2003 Most people with a even a passing familiarity with patents realize that for a U.S. patent to be valid, it must claim an invention that is new. What many do not know, however, is that a patent must satisfy other requirements that, while ...
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Early Claim Interpretation Can Cut Your Fees and Costs in Half

Corporate Counsel Magazine (forthcoming, October 1997) Patent litigation is notoriously expensive. In the American Intellectual Property Law Association's (AIPLA) 1995 Economic Survey, it was estimated that in the typical patent infringement suit ...
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Effective Patent Asset Management

Edward J. Kelly, a partner at Ropes & Gray, led an informative discussion focusing on both patent asset management and the relationship between inside and outside counsel. Together with Marc Foodman, Chief Patent Counsel at Sun Microsystems, Inc ...
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Failure to Disclose Relevant Prior Art during the Prosecution of A Patent Application Rendered the Patent Unenforceable

A patent applicant has a duty to prosecute an application before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office with candor, good faith, and honesty. See Paragon Podiatry Lab., Inc. v. KLM Labs., Inc., 984 F.2d 1182, 1192 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Affirmative ...
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Federal Circuit Abolishes Negative Inference from Willful Patent

In a landmark decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overruled a long-standing precedent relating to willful patent infringement. In Knorr-Bremse Systeme Fuer Nutzfahrzeuge GmBH v. Dana Corp., 383 F.3d 1337, 1341 (Fed. Cir. 2004 ...
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Federal Circuit Affirms Importance of Notice and Marking Requirements

In a precedent setting decision, the Federal Circuit placed strict limits on the time recovery of damages in the absence of either (a) actual notice to the infringer or (b) marking of the patent number on patented articles, under 35 USC § 287(a ...
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Federal Circuit Applies Rebuttable Presumption of Surrender Established by Supreme Court in Festo

The opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., 95-1066 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 26, 2003), is the most recent in a case that has spent the better part of a decade in the ...
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